I start feeling around for my books when they suddenly get placed in my hands. “Thank you.” Putting my hand on the car to help myself up, I feel him grasp my arm and help me, sending that same flutter to my tummy again.
Just as I get to my feet, I hear the sound of fast clicking heels. “Hey! What the hell are you doing? Get away from her!” Cece’s panicked voice fills the air along with two loud thumps.
“Ow, what the fuck?” I hear Ryder bellow.
Oh my god, did she just hit him?
“I mean it, get away from her or my pepper spray is next!”
Oh no… “Cece, stop, it’s okay. He was helping me.”
“Yeah right!” she sneers doubtfully.
“Really, he was. I just had a run-in with Kyle and he stepped in to help me.”
“With Kyle?”
“Yes.”
The air becomes consumed with tension as awkward silence surrounds us. “Oh,” she mutters, and rather than sound embarrassed she sounds fearful, if the tremble in her voice is anything to go by.
Ryder grunts, sounding angry. “Whatever.”
He begins to walk away and I quickly call out to him. “Ryder, wait!”
I hear him halt and assume he is looking at me. “Thank you, again.”
He’s silent and I think he isn’t going to reply, but he finally does a moment later. “I’ll see you around, Emily.” His words hold promise, and I’m not going to lie about the sudden excitement that rushes through me. I listen to him start off again then hear the sound of a loud motor start up before the squeal of tires.
“Oh shit. I’m so fucking dead. I can’t believe I just hit him with my purse,” Cece breathes out, clearly panicked.
“Oh my god, you hit him with your purse?” I repeat, instantly feeling guilty. “Poor guy.”
“Poor guy?” she screeches. “How about poor me, because I know that ‘poor guy’ is going to come murder me in my sleep! Oh god, oh shit! What have I done?”
I rear back in shock. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Emily, do you have any idea who that just was?”
“Yeah. He told me his name is Ryder.”
“Exactly!” Not understanding, I wait patiently for her to explain further. “Emily, that is Ryder Jameson. ‘The’ Ryder Jameson. The one guy no one fucks with, and the one every girl wants to fuck. He is seriously bad news.”
“Well he didn’t seem bad to me. He was actually really sweet, and he…”
She belts out a shaky laugh. “Ryder Jameson is a lot of things. Sexy? Yes. Dangerous? Double yes. Sweet? Hell no! And when I say dangerous, Emily, I mean dangerous, and I just hit him with my fucking purse!”
“Well, I think it was awfully sweet of him to help me. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up.” I swallow thickly, thinking about Kyle’s body pressing against mine forcefully.
Cece grabs my hand. “I’m so sorry, Emily. What happened?”
Instead of answering her, I ask a question of my own. “Where were you?”
She growls angrily. “Mrs. Thomas kept me after the bell to have a long drawn-out talk with me about my attire. She said my skirt was too fucking short. I told the bitch that I had to go because you were waiting for me, but she made me stay and said if I interrupted her one more time she was going to keep me every day after school. She wouldn’t even let me voice message you. I’m sorry, Emily, but it won’t happen again, because I’m going to sic my father on her ass.”
I release a tired breath. “It’s all right. Next time I’ll wait by the fountain until I hear from you.”
“Good idea,” she agrees while opening the car door for me. “Now let’s get home and you can help me figure out a way to stay alive after hitting Ryder with my purse.”
I chuckle and wait for her to enter on her side before I say: “You’re being ridiculous. He isn’t going to murder you for heaven’s sake, and why don’t you just apologize?”
She grunts. “You don’t know him. I have gone to school with that guy most of my life. Believe me, he’s capable of it.”
I shake my head, finding it hard to believe after what he just did for me. “What does he look like?” I ask, curious.
“He’s tall, like taller than most of the guys in our grade. He’s ripped but lean, not bulky. Brown, messy hair, and green eyes, olive complexion… Girl, there are just no words for a specimen like him. His sexiness cannot be described.”
I try to picture what she just said, but can’t. I was so young when I lost my vision that most of the time I’m not even sure if what I remember is real.
“But,” Cece adds, breaking into my thoughts, “he’s intimidating as hell. I’m serious, Emily, he doesn’t live the same lifestyle as us. I would make sure to stay as far away from him as you can.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, even though I know exactly what she’s saying.
“He lives on the other side of the railway tracks,” she explains, talking about the lower income part of the city. “His parents are real white trash. I remember when we were kids he used to come to school with bruises and black eyes. Rumor has it they were from his dad, which doesn’t surprise me. Like I said, they’re trash. He definitely doesn’t fit into our world.”
This is one of those times where I don’t even relate with Cece. I love her, I really do, but even her beliefs are skewed from our upbringing – labeling two worlds and thinking you can’t intermingle. I would give up this world I live in if it meant having loving parents that weren’t ashamed of me. But not Cece, I don’t think she could ever live without the status and money.
My heart breaks to think of someone hurting Ryder, especially when he was a boy. My parents are very cruel, but they have never laid a hand on me. Heck, most of the time they ignore me.
“I guess we have trigonometry together, but I’m sure after you thumped the crap out of him with your purse he probably won’t come anywhere near me now anyway.”
She grunts. “I guess one good thing came out of it then.”
I don’t respond, because the very idea of not getting to talk to Ryder again bothers me for some reason.
Chapter 3
Ryder
The entire ride to work my body is jacked with rage, yet my dick is hard as fuck after being so close to her. What the fuck is it about her?
Just this morning I had heard about the Governor’s daughter coming to our school to finish out her final year of high school. I didn’t know anything about her, or where she had been before. But on my way to trigonometry I passed by Jimmy and the guys as they were talking about her.
“Hey, Jameson, have you got a look at the Governor’s daughter yet?” Jimmy had asked. “Who knew a blind chick could be so fucking hot.”
That was how I actually found out she was blind, not in trigonometry. After hearing the insecurity in her voice, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. I shook my head at Jimmy’s remark, not giving a shit. I don’t follow politics because I personally think all politicians are nothing but a bunch of lying assholes. Of course I know of Governor Michaels, everyone does, but I had no idea he had a daughter, let alone a blind one. I also didn’t give a shit because I knew she would be like the rest of them – high on herself. Looking down her nose at people while she walked around in her designer clothes, making sure not to break a fucking nail.
Yet, when I walked into trigonometry and spotted Emily Michaels, my step had faltered and my dick instantly turned hard. She was not hot. I don’t know if there is a word powerful enough to describe how beautiful she is. Long, light brown hair fell past her shoulders in loose waves and shone as if the fucking sun was shining on it. Her face was soft and sweet with full pouty lips. You could tell her sun-kissed complexion was natural and not fake like all the other girls in our school. It was weird to see her wearing sunglasses but I figured that had to do with her being blind.